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Even at age 80, Don Cherry hasn’t soured on hockey – and fans still love him

A switch to Rogers put his prevalence in flux, but whether weighing in on fighting, Stroumboulopoulos or even “advanced stats,” people are still watching in droves. Ryan Kennedy explains why.

When super draft prospect
Connor McDavid broke his hand in a fight in November, the number of hot takes on the matter scorched the media landscape. Everyone was expected to weigh in and NHL players were not immune. Boston Bruins power forward
Milan Lucic was one of them and, given his appetite for truculence, his response was no surprise. “You definitely respect the fact he’s willing to step up for himself,” Lucic said. “On another point, not contradicting or going against what Don Cherry was saying, it’s good to see that a player of his caliber has that fire.”
Did you catch that right there? Lucic, a 6-foot-3, 235-pound bruiser who has never been shy about speaking his mind, just wanted to make it clear he wasn’t trying to run afoul of Cherry, who had stated publicly he didn’t think a pure skill player such as McDavid should be fighting.

But that’s the influence Cherry, now 80, still wields in the hockey world. At the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, you will find the largest concentration of NHL reporters in the English-speaking world on a Saturday night, and when Coach’s Corner comes on during the first intermission, a huge crowd gathers around the TV monitors. Some of those gawkers hate Cherry, some love him, but the crowd is much thinner when any other commentator speaks on a broadcast.

This was supposed to a tough year for Cherry. Rogers Media had won the NHL’s exclusive national broadcasting rights and essentially made his former employer, the CBC, a ward of the conglomerate. His buddy and sidekick Ron MacLean had been jettisoned from the main news desk and now spends his time travelling from town to town, broadcasting from hockey outposts and joining Cherry in studio as much as his schedule permits. But ‘Grapes’ still carries a ton of weight and he stands by his resume. “I watch hockey every night,” he said. “I go to minor midget games, I saw McDavid when he was a bantam, I was coach of the year in the AHL and the NHL. I’m coaching the CHL Top Prospects Game and I was a player. From April 8 to June 19 in the playoffs, I’ve been on the air every other night for 34 years. I want somebody to beat that on credentials – I know what I’m talking about.” And lots of folks agree. The most popular YouTube clips of his Coach’s Corner segment get clicks in the six-figure range, despite the fact most hockey fans watched it live already. Sure, change is coming to the broadcasting landscape, but Cherry still has fun out there every Saturday night, and his early experience under the reign of Rogers Media has been good after initial fears about the takeover. “Nobody really knew what was going to happen – I was concerned,” he said. “But it’s even a little better now because I don’t have to see anyone. And I have the best opening and closing (graphics) I’ve ever had.” Cherry said his studio is sequestered from the other sets, so he just shows up and does his business with little distraction from outside sources. Not that he’s against his new compatriots. George Stroumboulopoulos, the man who was brought in to replace MacLean at the main desk, may be “a different cat,” in Cherry’s words, but Grapes also counts him as an ally. That’s because Stroumboulopoulos once had former NHL agitator Sean Avery on his talk show and stood up to Avery when he trashed Cherry on air. “I never forgot that,” Cherry said. “He’s all right in my books.” Not that he enjoys what MacLean is going through, especially when the host’s schedule means doing Coach’s Corner via split screen from say, Fort McMurray, Alta. “I don’t like it,” Cherry said. “It’s difficult for Ron, too. We can kibitz more when we’re together. But it won’t happen often.” As for how the new-ish post is going, it really depends on who you ask – or more accurately, who wants to tell you what they think. After Cherry complained on-air about the amount of time his segment was given (something that, for the record, he had also said numerous times in the past with CBC), multiple media outlets conducted polls on Cherry’s deployment. Were people happy with less Cherry or outraged that there wasn’t more of the colorful commentator? The question unfortunately just became a Rorschach test for the newspapers themselves – left-leaning surveys didn’t like him, while right-leaning surveys championed Cherry. As for overall ratings, it’s difficult to pinpoint the specific impact of Coach’s Corner, but ratings are down for the whole broadcast since Rogers took over. Despite being on the same channel (CBC) at the same time, the prime-time Hockey Night in Canada broadcast on Saturdays isn’t faring as well year over year. Last November, the event was usually a top-10 ratings winner for all of Canadian television, even coming in second the first week of the month. This year, no November HNIC did better than 23rd overall, drawing fewer than 1.5 million eyeballs per week versus more than two million under CBC’s independent watch, according to Numeris, a not-for-profit industry organization. And it’s not like Cherry is changing. He’s still rocking flamboyant suits, he still goes a little overboard on occasion (which he readily admits to) and he still has an opinion that he wants to get out there. For example, the man who gave us the Christmas stocking staple Rock’Em Sock’Em videos now lives in a world where NHL enforcers will need radio tags if they get any more endangered. But as much as Cherry loves the policemen of hockey, you can’t call him dogmatic when it comes to the issue of fists without talent. “I always believed a guy should be able to play,” he said. “If you look at my Boston Bruins teams, John Wensink had 28 goals one year, Stan Jonathan could score 20 and Terry O’Reilly was one of our best players.” Cherry still thinks the Toronto Maple Leafs should have found space on their fourth line for fighters
Colton Orr and
Frazer McLaren, though stat heads would disagree. Grapes isn’t ignorant of the analytics movement, either, even if he believes puck-possession players can be intuited by the best coaches. “Toe Blake – he could tell if a guy had the puck a lot,” he said. “Pat Burns, Pat Quinn…they were proud to say they weren’t Xs and Os guys. I don’t think (stats knowledge) hurts. If you say it’s not a big deal, people think you’re from a hundred years ago.” Interestingly, Cherry had a nice anecdote about why players themselves probably shouldn’t care about advanced stats: historically, numbers both good and bad have influenced their play and usually for the worse. “I always tried to keep the plus-minus away from the players,” Cherry said. “When the numbers came out I always tried to hide them.” You can wonder when he will finally cede his spot at the table, but the man himself is quite happy to be where he is today. “People ask me when I’m going to retire. “I say, ‘retire from what?’ If I get put off, it’s been a great run.”
This feature appears in the Jan. 26 edition of The Hockey News magazine. Get in-depth features like this one, and much more, by subscribing now.

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Connor McDavid didn’t mince his words when asked post-game about Brandon Manning. He called the Flyers defenseman “classless” and said Manning admitted to injuring him on purpose.

Connor McDavid has had no shortage of head-to-head battles with young stars in the game. There has been outings against Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews and more than handful per year against the Flames duo of Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan.

But of all the players Connor McDavid could have had an on-ice feud with, it seems Brandon Manning is the first real rival for the Oilers phenom.

One might recall that it was during the early part of the 2015-16 campaign that Manning, a Philadelphia Flyers blueliner, got tangled up with McDavid as he looked to break in on goal, resulting in McDavid making hard contact with the boards behind the net. The impact with the boards saw McDavid break his collarbone and led to a 37-game absence for the then-rookie.

It was believed to be an unintentional act, something that simply happened as part of the game, and McDavid had even absolved Manning of any blame. That was until last night, more than 13 months after the Nov. 3, 2015 injury to McDavid..

During the Oilers’ hard-fought 6-5 defeat at the hands of the Flyers, McDavid was seen verbally jousting with Manning on a couple of occasions. The most obvious case came after a power play goal by McDavid, where he was seen skating towards Manning and shouting something in his direction.

It didn’t end there, though. Post-game, the Oilers captain went in on Manning, calling the hit that led to the broken collarbone an intentional act.

"I did all I could defending him last year in the media," McDavid said. "Everyone wanted to make a big deal saying he did it on purpose, and he wanted to say some comments today about what went on last year. I thought it was one of the [most] classless things I've ever seen on the ice. He said some things and our guys responded accordingly. I guess we can put the whole 'if he did it on purpose' thing to rest because what he said out there kind of confirmed that. Shows what kind of guy he is when he doesn’t step up and fight some of our guys.”

Shortly after McDavid commented on the incident, Manning fired back saying that he would “never intentionally hurt someone,” and added that’s not the way he plays.

"Anybody who knows me, I play a hard game,” Manning said, according to NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman. “That's the reason I'm here, that's the way I'm in the NHL. I'm not here to score goals like some of those guys. I think I play an honest game, and anyone who knows me knows I play hard and stuff happens out there."

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The Golden Knights have hit another hurdle with their name, this time with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A trademark request has been rejected, but it doesn’t sound like the team expects a name change.

The Vegas Golden Knights are really having a tough time catching a break in the naming department.

On Wednesday, a trademark request by the Golden Knights was rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in large part because the name and logo were deemed too similar to that of the NCAA’s College of St. Rose Golden Knights.

Yes, that’s right, yet another roadblock between the NHL’s newest franchise and the name Golden Knights.

The first hurdle for the team, and the first real hubbub about the name, came shortly after the naming ceremony in late November. The team had only had the Golden Knights moniker in place for a week when it was reported by The Fayetteville Observer’s Steve DeVane that the U.S. Army was set to review Vegas’ use of the name because it is shared by the Army’s highly decorated parachute team.

And all that came after Vegas owner Bill Foley purposely strayed from his first choice for the team name, Black Knights, in order to avoid any conflict with the U.S. Army’s NCAA athletics programs and after the singular name, Knights, was reportedly avoided in order to forego any conflict with the OHL’s London Knights.

Suffice to say, the naming process has been a headache thus far. However, before those who despise the name and/or logo go celebrating in the streets, it should be noted that the latest naming hurdle likely means nothing in the long run.

“Office actions like this are not at all unusual, and we will proceed with the help of outside counsel in preparing a response to this one,” the statement reads.

In their statement, Vegas also pointed to the shared names of UCLA and Boston, both named the Bruins, Miami and Carolina, both named the Hurricanes, and even pointed out that Vegas and Clarkson share the Golden Knights name. None of this is to mention the MLB’s Texas Rangers and the NHL’s New York Rangers share a name.

“We believe, at the end of the day, all parties will embrace the fact that we are the Vegas Golden Knights and this absolutely will work out,” Craven told Gotz. “I hope people don’t overreact to this at all. We believe everyone will be satisfied. We are only going to enhance the name Golden Knights for everyone. That’s our goal.”

UPDATE: NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly has released the following statement:

“We are currently reviewing the Trademark Office's letter and will prepare a detailed response demonstrating why we continue strongly to believe the Vegas Golden Knights mark should be registered in co-existence with the college registration, just as a number of other nicknames currently co-exist in professional and college sports (particularly where there is no overlap as to the sport for which the nickname is being used). That response is not due until June 7, 2017.

“We consider this a routine matter and it is not our intention to reconsider the name or logo of this franchise. We fully intend to proceed as originally planned, relying on our common law trademark rights as well as our state trademark registrations while we work through the process of addressing the question raised in the federal applications.”

Blackhawks emergency backup Eric Semborski gets his own rookie card

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Blackhawks emergency backup Eric Semborski gets his own rookie card

Eric Semborski landed himself the opportunity of a lifetime when he strapped on the pads as an emergency backup for the Blackhawks, and now Topps has commemorated the moment with a Semborski trading card.

Eric Semborski’s dream came true when he stepped on the ice as an NHL goaltender, albeit an emergency backup, on Dec. 3, and now he’s got an incredible piece of memorabilia to show for it.

Just days after the 23-year-old made his rookie debut, trading card company Topps has unveiled the official Eric Semborski rookie card. That’s right: the 23-year-old has his very own trading card. The card is part of Topps’ NOW series, which features milestone or memorable moments and are made available shortly after the achievement.

Semborski’s stint as the Blackhawks emergency goaltender came due to regular starting netminder Corey Crawford was sent to hospital to undergo an appendectomy. The Blackhawks were scrambling to find a replacement for Crawford, and a backup for Scott Darling, when they started asking around to find an emergency amateur netminder to fill in.

Semborski, a former goaltender at Temple University, was working with children at the Flyers’ practice facility when he was called to sign on for emergency duty. Hilariously, Semborski wore a Blackhawks No. 50 jersey — which most will recognize as Crawford’s number — when he took the ice for warmup. Of the chance to stop NHL shots in warmup, Semborski said it was the best moment of his life.

Possibly the only thing that could have made the moment better was if Semborski actually got into the game and, as it turns out, that was very nearly the case. Post-game, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said that had the Flyers scored on the empty net to stretch their lead in the Saturday afternoon contest, he would have thrown Semborski into the net for the final minute of the outing.

As for the card, there’s no chance it will be worth anything near what a Connor McDavid rookie card will be worth in a decade, but it’s certainly a nice piece of merchandise for the one-day NHL netminder.

John Tavares scores with a move no one had ever done before

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John Tavares scores with a move no one had ever done before

The New York Islanders captain undressed Jay Bouwmeester in the most unusual of ways, but the important thing is he kept the puck. Then he buried it

John Tavares: good at hockey.

The New York Islanders captain pulled off an absolutely stunning series of moves last night, culminating in a laser-shot goal against St. Louis Blues goalie Jake Allen. But let's get back to his humbling of Olympic gold medallist Jay Bouwmeester, because that's where the real magic happened.

Witness, as Tavares puts his stick behind his back and grabs it with his other hand while still skating and fending off Bouwmeester. Then, since he is a patient boy, Tavares waits and waits and waits before firing one top corner on Allen:

As the soccer folks would say, lovely. New York would go on to beat the Blues 3-2, with Anders Lee scoring the other two goals for the Isles. After struggling to begin the season, New York is now 6-2-2 in its past 10 games. Tavares leads the squad with 21 points through 26 contests.